Roschin BS, Argunova TS, Lebedev SP, Asadchikov VE, Lebedev AA, Volkov YO, Nuzhdin AD. Application of Grazing-Incidence X-ray Methods to Study Terrace-Stepped SiC Surface for Graphene Growth.
Materials (Basel) 2022;
15:7669. [PMID:
36363260 PMCID:
PMC9654947 DOI:
10.3390/ma15217669]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2022] [Revised: 10/23/2022] [Accepted: 10/28/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
The synthesis of graphene by the graphitization of SiC surface has been driven by a need to develop a way to produce graphene in large quantities. With the increased use of thermal treatments of commercial SiC substrates, a comprehension of the surface restructuring due to the formation of a terrace-stepped nanorelief is becoming a pressing challenge. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the utility of X-ray reflectometry and grazing-incidence off-specular scattering for a non-destructive estimate of depth-graded and lateral inhomogeneities on SiC wafers annealed in a vacuum at a temperature of 1400-1500 °C. It is shown that the grazing-incidence X-ray method is a powerful tool for the assessment of statistical parameters, such as effective roughness height, average terrace period and dispersion. Moreover, these methods are advantageous to local probe techniques because a broad range of spatial frequencies allows for faster inspection of the whole surface area. We have found that power spectral density functions and in-depth density profiles manifest themselves differently between the probing directions along and across a terrace edge. Finally, the X-ray scattering data demonstrate quantitative agreement with the results of atomic force microscopy.
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